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Aug. 17, 2021 - Sean Hannity Show
29:23
The Faces Behind Losing Afghanistan
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This is an iHeart Podcast.
News Roundup Information Overload Hour, 800-941 Sean is our number.
You want to be a part of the program.
We have Donald Trump on Hannity tonight.
What is the difference is his approach from a withdrawal in Afghanistan versus Joe Biden's disaster?
Because there are huge, huge differences in what their plans were in spite of Joe Biden's blame.
Pretty much Biden.
Buck stops with me, but I want to blame the president of Afghanistan that fled, and I want to blame the military that I said was one of the best in the world just a couple of weeks ago, and when all else fails, I'm going to blame Donald Trump because I inherited it.
Well, you also inherited Joe, secure borders.
You also inherited Joe, energy independence.
You also inherited Joe, uh COVID controls with therapeutics and vaccines, and you didn't have to let, you know, all these illegal immigrants with a high rate of COVID positivity into the country and then disperse them all throughout the country without any testing, without any vaccine mandates for them.
Anyway, here's Biden blaming the fall of Afghanistan on everybody but himself and Leon Panetta, well, former again, defense secretary, not a conservative, former CIA director.
Listen to how he compares the fall of Afghanistan.
When I came into office, I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban.
The choice I had to make as your president was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban.
So what's happened?
Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country.
The Afghan military collapsed sometime without trying to fight.
I know there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating Afghan civilians sooner.
Part of the answer is some of the Afghans did not want to leave earlier.
I am president of the United States of America.
And the buck stops with me.
This moment is what for Joe Biden.
President Biden?
You know, in many ways, I think of John Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.
You know, it unfolded quickly, and the president thought that everything would be fine, and that was not the case.
But President Kennedy took responsibility for what took place.
And I strongly recommend to President Biden that he take responsibility, admit the mistakes that were made.
And he could fix it.
There are ways to fix this.
But of course, with each passing day, it becomes even that much more difficult.
Now imagine if you lost a son, a daughter, or or you have a son or a daughter, or or somebody close to you in your life with the most severe injuries that that served in Afghanistan, or those that have PTSD for having served so many tours over there.
And now you're you're watching and asking yourself why?
What what did we accomplish for 20 years?
And the price that was so heavy that was paid by so many.
Um, you know, for example, uh, we're gonna introduce to you, Billy Vaughan.
He's the gold star father of Navy SEAL Aaron uh Vaughn.
Uh he's been on the program a number of times before, great guy.
And by the way, that story was turned into a movie, Fallen Angel, Call Sign, Extortion 17.
We talked about this in the past.
Our friend Israel Del Toro is an Air Force sergeant master, uh, and we call him D.T. affectionately, was serving a tour of duty in 2005.
We've told you his story.
His Humvee rolled over an IED, and he suffered severe burns, more than 80% of his body.
Doctors gave him a 15% chance of survival, and through the love and support of an incredible family that I have met, Del Toro, DT not only survived, he went on to accomplish even more than he ever dreamed.
Billy Vaughn, the father of Aaron Vaughan lost his son when government missteps led to the largest loss of life incident in Afghanistan in this war.
Thirty Americans making the ultimate sacrifice for their country when their U.S. Army helicopter exploded in Afghanistan, killing everyone on board.
Ten years later is now the Taliban is we're watching it seize every city and Kabul and Afghanistan.
Uh, you know, how do you think he feels today?
I bet pretty sick.
Anyway, joining us now is uh Billy Vaughn uh and our good friend D.T. is back with us.
Welcome back both of you.
I wish it was under better circumstances.
You both been longtime friends of the program.
Uh thanks for having us.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sean.
Thank you very much.
Billy, I I mean, I don't even know where to begin to ask the question.
I mean, how do you feel just seems it seems so inadequate a question, but it's I can't imagine.
I mean, uh if I was I I'd be out of my mind, apoplectic and furious today.
Well, Sean, uh yeah, y you you know, we we didn't we didn't expect anything good out of Joe Biden.
I mean, we've never seen anything good out of him, and you know, we we we knew it would be a continuation of the uh eight years of the Obama Biden administration and and the failures in foreign policy, but which by the way, he says he is the export uh expert on on uh national security and foreign policy.
Uh he's been in it over 40 years, you know, and uh we see that, but uh but you know, uh in my mind, Sean, you know, I'm just just uh just just an American citizen, just just uh a dad, and I I don't have any words to express.
I never dreamed that uh it would be this cataclysmic uh uh w when when Biden did this.
Uh I mean it's it's it's a betrayal of all time to the American citizen, to the American warrior, uh to the Afghan people, and then all he wants to do is throw insults and uh and uh talk about how he made the right decision.
And I mean he's he's a he's a sickening individual, and I will not call him I will not call him by the words that goes in front of President uh that uh the uh that that goes in front of Trump, President Trump.
I will not I will not give that title to that man.
And uh I I think I think here again as a citizen, he needs to resign.
Uh the citizens need to stand up in this country and demand accountability from this administration and from uh political generals and admirals, and uh I don't I don't know how to do that.
I don't know how to go about that.
But I know and surely it can be done and we need some accountability for what's taking place in Afghanistan.
As a father, do you think in the back of your mind may maybe uh well why did I allow my son to do this?
Well, uh no no, no, I I don't because Aaron was doing what he wanted to do.
Aaron thought that those political uh generals and admirals, just like other fields, just like other warriors, not just seals, but all of them.
They love this country, they love the American way of life, they love their family, they love God, and you know what?
They thought they were helping the American people.
And uh so, you know, now Aaron Aaron was my boy, but he's also a grown man, and you know what?
Uh he's the kind of man, if he were alive today, he'd be sick, but I think in my mind he'd be trying to find a way to get back over there and help help those people and help Americans get out.
He wouldn't be sitting on his ass over here uh, you know, someplace eating ice cream like like like this man in the in the White House.
He was just that kind of guy.
And uh so no.
I always say America's treasure.
And we can't do this anymore.
We can't ask America's treasure.
You p people like your son to go fight these wars and abandon them and and just say, uh never mind.
After they put their their blood, their soul, their heart, their you know, uh their lives on the line.
Many die like your son.
Many come back with severe injuries like D. T. Uh D.T. uh great to have you back.
You know, by the way, D.T.'s biggest fan in the world is Linda.
They talk twenty-four-seven.
It's like unbelievable.
Um and uh he's become a friend of the longtime friend of the program too.
Uh you're watching all this unfold.
You know what's going on here.
What is your reaction to all of this?
You know, Se well, it's it's it's a mixture from anger to frustration to disappointment to sadness, you know, the the anger that you know, we went out there to to go do a mission and to uh almost just kind of give up on it, you know, as as as an operator.
One knows we're we go there to win, we go there to fight, we go there to crush the enemy and keep the enemy at paid.
And it seems like all that blood, sweat and treasure was was for a freaking participation trophy.
And it it's it's saddened.
It it saddens me because you know, not only was I out there, you know, to be a freaking knuckle dragger to freaking just crushed the enemy calling an airstrike, but I also got to see and help uh in the region I was in.
I helped those little girls go to school for the first time.
I can see that.
And you know, we don't talk about that a lot when we're out there doing the thing, you you just hear about us, you know, crushes the enemy.
But people forget about those those girls that never got to go to school before and now they are.
And one has to imagine we've been there twenty years.
Twenty years we've been able to keep the peace over there for those the minorities and uh the girls to, you know, have a life, and now it's just out on the way and and it's it that's the sad part and and it and it hurts because you know, I don't have the what was it for?
I know what was for.
I w I was I was there for what happened in nine eleven.
I was there, you know, destroying the enemy.
I know why I went there and I would do it again, even knowing that I got hurt.
But it it's just disappointed that we we left those people there to die and and it's saying because who's gonna help us?
You know, people say, Well, we can't be there forever.
It's like and I got that.
No one's no one's debating that.
What what people are debating is the matter how we left.
And I also like I like to bring them up.
It's like, well, what do you think?
You know, we when they say, Well, should have left right out uh right away.
It's like, tell me what would have happened if we left after World War II we left Europe.
Do you think Russia would have just sat there?
No, they would have taken all over that.
Or or more more recent Korea.
We leave South Korea, what do you think is gonna happen?
We've been there for years longer.
We're still in Europe.
You know, so we just let these guys and like like some of me and my teammates have talked, it's like, do you think uh any other people are gonna trust us now?
Or like we're gonna be there for you.
You know, uh and it like I said, it's just it's sad we betrayed our the like my teammates, we we betrayed my my Afghani uh uh National Army guys that were dire by my side, getting shot at, getting died, you know.
Those guys fall.
You know, and and you got you can understand why these guys just gave up.
You know, we were there, we had what, 2500 guys left, and they were mostly for support, giving them air superiority.
So whenever anytime they got in trouble, they had that support.
Now you take that away from them.
You know, we as Americans never gotta worry about you know, not having air above us.
We always have that option where like oh crap, we're in a in a line.
We can call in that air strike, and we have and we can overcome the enemy.
These guys also serves as a deterrent.
Quick break, we'll come back.
More with Billy Vaughan, he lost his Navy SEAL son, uh Aaron Vaughn, as he reacts to the events in Afghanistan along with our friend Israel Del Toro, better known as DT.
Um anyway, listen, you heard about the defund the police madness, dismantle the police, no bail laws.
Uh, and Israel Del Toro uh is with us.
We affectionately refer to him as DT.
We're reacting to the events in Afghanistan.
Donald Trump is on Hannity tonight.
You know, what I'm worried about, you know, on top of everything that has happened, which was preventable, the Pentagon says they've been warning Biden for months and months about this coming pending debacle.
And the Taliban now is in control of their capital and the State Department is actually telling Americans in Kabul that we've left behind to shelter in place.
We have as many as 40,000 Americans stranded, uh, but they're only taking about five thousand a day.
Well w why are why is there not a massive airlift operation to get them out today, the latest tomorrow?
Wall Street Journal was pointing out the evacuation flights are taking off almost empty.
You know, ten with as many as ten, forty thousand American citizens locked in on the ground.
Never mind the interpreters that that aided us and helped us, but at least ten thousand to forty thousand U.S. citizens are there.
We can't get a a straight answer.
Even the Washington Post is pointing out this is a a national disgrace.
And then the Pen Pentagon's warning, well, yeah, now the the threat of terrorism around the world has increased significantly.
I'm like, yeah, no Adam Schiff here.
No kidding.
Mr. Vaughn, uh, you know, how do we get these Americans out?
This this this is your son gave his life fighting to prevent Americans being in harm's way.
Well, you know, Sean, we we have uh this is this is just Billy, not in military expert talking, but I believe we have the military and the and the hardware and the weapons, and if we want to get them out, we can get 'em out.
I believe our military can do just about anything if they're called alone to do, if the fish is and the jelly fishes in the White House and and uh and and the political admirals in general, they get out of the way.
Let them go in there and get 'em.
I can take them.
Those operators can go in there and get 'em out.
And you know, they can take things and kick buttons and they could get them out.
It's like they've won that war a long time ago.
But they kept us in there.
Uh nice and building and and political correctness and stuff, but they can get 'em out of there.
We we just need to do it.
We need to use whatever we have to use to save Americans and get them out of there.
That's that's just an opinion from a man right here in Florida that just a citizen.
Uh I think a pretty smart man that had an incredibly brave and courageous and heroic son.
Uh Billy Vaughn, great to hear your voice and talk to you again.
It's been a while.
DT.
Uh I know you talk to Linda every day.
Don't lie about it.
It's it's a well known secret.
You guys are chitting and chatting and you know yipping and yapping all the time.
Anything she says about me by the way is probably likely a lie.
It's not true.
Say nice things about you.
DT is that true or not, right?
DT would not say nice things she says nice.
Yeah okay.
Um but anyway we love you both and thank you both I gotta tell you and Linda C L Bryant told me to tell you that he got me first.
He wanted to gig you so uh so he said make sure you tell who who got me who got us CL Bryant by the way let me tell you the next time you go on with Reverend C L you gotta you gotta call 'em out.
Don't worry about CL.
I know all about CL.
I mean love you both thanks for coming back.
I'm sorry under these circumstances as always sad.
Uh 800 nine four one Sean you get would you please get CL back on the program soon because I am going to get my revenge.
I wanted to remind you there's a really cool event coming up and I just asked Charlie Daniels Jr. to join us and remind us.
Um anyway it's at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and uh anyway it's a volunteer jam.
There's a lot of huge acts that are gonna be there.
Um and I just wanted Charlie to remind people that uh this is a going on a lot of people still think events are not happening.
They are uh tell us what you got going on tomorrow night and I wish I could be there.
Well we sh we wish you could be there too Sean but uh we understand but uh I just wanted to say first of all thank you for having me on today.
I mean I know the world is going crazy.
Uh a friend of mine who's retired special forces said that he thought he was watching the documentary about the last days of Vietnam and it was actually the news about Afghanistan.
Uh and the people in Afghanistan especially the women and children they really need our prayers and we're dealing with COVID.
Do you know how about how many times your dad went over to Iraq and Afghanistan to perform for the troops at least three or four times.
At least three or four times but uh but there's I know there's a lot of stuff blowing up in the world right now and and you knew my dad he would not be at a loss for words right now.
He would be coming he'd be texting me and telling me what I need to say.
You know I'd be able to use about half of it you know take out the rest and I can use the I can use half of it.
Yeah but the uh so the event tomorrow night it's uh most likely the last volunteer jam.
The volunteer jam started in 1974 continued off and on over the years and uh you were one at the one in twenty fifteen so I you know what it's like.
Um dad was all about the military.
He loved our armed forces he used to say only two things protect America the grace of Almighty God and the United States military.
And we're going to be there tomorrow because it's gonna be a s a salute to Charlie volunteer jam and you got like every big name act in in Nashville coming out for this it's at the Nashville uh the Nashville Bridgestone Arena it's at seven o'clock tomorrow.
Man I wish I could be there.
Uh we wish you could too but it's uh I mean it's I mean Alabama, Marshall Tucker band, Chris Young, uh the Gatlin brothers, uh big and rich.
Good old you know John's gonna be there.
So Michael W. Smith, uh Pure Prairie League, Lori Morgan, uh it's just there's gonna be a lot of people you're mentioning is a friend of mine and and I'm a fan of everyone.
Well you know if you didn't if you weren't such an important guy and had stuff to do up there then you know get your butt down here but you know we'll have no I'm I'm trying to get a couple of days off in the summer this year.
Just a couple.
And I'm just gearing up for next year when I know I won't take any days.
That's what that's the way election years work.
But well we love your Dad.
And and uh can people just where do the people go if they want to join tomorrow night and and go see this great tribute to you, Dad?
It's uh it's uh like you said, it's at the Bridgestone.
Uh there's the a rotating slide on the front page of Charlie Daniels.com that will take you right to the ticket link ticketmaster and to let everybody know that this part of this is going to support the Journey Home Project, which is Dad's charity, which aims to help our veterans adjust a civilian life.
And uh and people just can come have a great time in the middle of all the chaos in the world.
Just don't just you know that's that's what people want.
A few minutes just to take a break.
That's what sports used to be about, but now that's been politicized.
Yeah.
Uh anyway, so that's tomorrow that's tomorrow night, it's all taking place.
Salute to Charlie Daniels.
Every big name in Nashville is gonna be there at the uh bridge Nashville Bridgestone Arena, seven o'clock.
Uh Charlie Daniels Jr., we love you.
We loved your dad more than anything, and we appreciate you reminding us.
Thank you.
And and we love you and dad loved you uh so much, and I just appreciate it.
Thank you.
Well feeling was mutual, my friend, as you know.
Uh John in Chicago.
What's up, John?
Glad you called.
Thanks a lot for uh taking my call.
We've been listening and watching you since your first visit to Chicago back in the day, and uh been following you religiously since then.
Uh but we're we're gonna talk about big picture here.
I've been working in security and surveillance for many years, working with Alphabet agencies, and what we're not seeing uh in this whole uh uh uh exodus from Afghanistan.
Uh we left all seven air bases, we left the drone launchers, we left the Humvees, we left the ammo, we left everything we could have destroyed in place, right?
So that somebody could use it, right?
Yeah.
This was all planned.
Or we could have taken it with we could have taken it with us to save the taxpayer money because we pay for all of that.
Some of those Humvees, you know what an up armored Humvee cost, it's a fortune.
Yeah, I be I happen to be married to a federally licensed uh customs house broker.
The cost of bringing that back is extraordinary.
However, we could have destroyed it in place uh and and stopped them from using it against our allies.
Well, about a month and a half ago, Russia started moving assets to the Afghan border.
If you notice, uh uh there's been a lot of money being exchanged between China and Iran and so on and so forth.
All we have to do, Sean, and this is and you have great investigative powers, follow the money.
There are people in the United States here, and this is not a conspiracy theory that are making millions and millions of dollars off of this and the lives of our men and women who have perished in that conflict and and that rebuilding of of a great.
Let me let me put emphasis on one thing you're saying here, which I think is very, very important, is that both Russia and China are very quickly moving in to recognize the Islamic emirates of Afghanistan and form a quick alliance, as quick an alliance as possible, and and all of that is unfolding before our eyes, just like they're funding terror, the number one state sponsor of terror, Iran.
I think I've been like the only idiot on TV and radio saying it almost every day, so people will understand how profound this is.
You have you're watching a realignment of rogue, hostile regimes that do not like this country and do not like the Western world, whether it's China, uh some of these radical Islamic countries, uh, or whether it's Russia, these are all hostile regimes to the United States.
That's why Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Joe's brother, the Biden family syndicate, all the monies they got from all of these these hostile regimes matters.
Their actions are uh Joe's actions seem to me as somebody who knows that his family is compromised.
And it is beyond alarming, nor does he really up to the task of handling the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan anymore.
I'm most worried in the short term about getting our Amer fellow Americans the hell out of there.
Or it's gonna turn into um day four hundred and forty-four.
America held hostage in the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan.
Uh if we're not careful, you know, the idea that I'm reading today, well, you know, the it's they're only taking five thousand people a day and for the advice from our State Department is shelter in place in c in a cobble in Afghanistan.
Shelter in place for what?
What are we waiting?
What are they waiting for?
Where the hell are the airplanes?
Where are they to get these people home?
Immediately.
And maybe we don't have to accept the entire population of interpreters, but those that are known to have been helping our military efforts for twenty years, if we don't get them out, they will be dead.
They will be dead.
And that that is a that is as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, you can bet on that too.
Appreciate the call.
Thank you.
Um let's get back to our phones.
Uh let's say hi to Sandra is an upstate New York.
What's up, Sandra?
How are you?
I'm good.
Thank you, Sean, for taking my call.
I listen to you every day.
I watch your program and at night.
Uh thank you for getting the truth out there.
And I just want to make it quick and say uh how much this is i i I find this so disturbing, and that our troops who have served over there all this time, have died, have come home broken, uh, they have my heart.
They are my heroes, totally.
My husband served in Vietnam, and and so I know that how these troops are they have their families and everything.
It just breaks my heart.
And the fact that our so-called president who should resign, and I want him to resign, he's no longer viable for me.
And uh that he's in his camp David, while I the uh Taliban one of the head of uh the Taliban is in Afghanistan near Kabul, uh from Obama Bryden, uh that they let out a getmo.
I think it's terrible.
And uh I saw I Jake Sullivan from the State Department, he was making little comments on TV a little while ago, and he was he was just trying to either blame Trump or blame, you know, that oh they couldn't do this and they didn't know about that.
It's like you know, Sean, th this administration it needs to go.
The whole administration does, uh the Democrats.
They are unfit, and Biden is totally unfit to be president.
And that's the right.
I don't dis I don't disagree at all.
Um, you know, I I I just uh w what do we do?
He's not listening if it I tell you this, if it was the Trump family compromised by China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Russia, trust me, the coverage would be very different.
Yeah.
Just like if any of the Trump kids dumped, you know, lied on a gun application and dumped a weapon in a trash can and is on like a million home videos with hookers and smoking crack cocaine.
Um I I don't think they'd survive that either.
Or if they had zero experience and were getting paid millions of dollars and their daddy, the president, uh threatened to withhold taxpayer dollars unless they fire the prosecutors that are investigating and l wanting to arrest one of the Trump kids, I don't think they'd ignore that part either.
Right.
We're living in a very corrupt, biased media environment.
And that it is sad.
We don't have equal justice, we don't have equal coverage.
You know, Twitter, big tech, they silence conservatives.
You know, we still have talk radio.
They try to take that away from us a million times, a million different ways.
There's a few of us on Fox.
I can you just watch Fox.
You know that not everyone on Fox agrees with Sean Hannity.
It's pretty obvious.
Uh, but at least I have my voice and I'm not told what to say or do.
I I make those decisions myself, just like I do with my radio partners.
And uh at least we we're trying our best, but it's really gonna count on all of us together to get the word out, and that means all of you on social media, uh, and those of you that are out there doing, you know, getting involved as much as you possibly can to whatever level you can.
I know we're all busy.
I know everybody's got mortgages and rent to pay and food to put on the table and tuition to pay and car payments to pay and truck payments to pay.
And it's to life's hard.
But i even if it's just voting, every bit ha helps.
It really does.
Sandra, thank you.
Um, we only have less than a minute.
Joseph and Georgia, I'll give it all to you, but it's less than a minute.
Yes, sir.
I'm a veteran of Afghanistan and Kuwait.
I just want to put in perspective what the last guy said.
The amount of assets we left behind is damning.
We have uh several fuel tanks there that holds hundreds of thousands of gallons of jet fuel.
They can also be used in the diesel vehicles that were left behind.
So now these guys have vehicles.
They have fuel trucks on top of that, and they have ammunition caches and the weapons we left behind.
I'll top up a functioning airfield that all China and Russia has to do is come in, land.
Hey, they've got their foothold.
We should have evacuated the embassy first, brought everybody to Bogram, blew them out.
Once the embassy and all that was done, get our guys out, send them out, gone, and we could have been out of there.
And we wouldn't have had telestol we were leaving until every last American was out of there.
But that's my take.
We needed to be gone.
It just it needed to be executed a whole lot better.
But I just want to say who the hell POL.
Donald Trump wouldn't have done it this way because he never would have let them get the 60% of the country that they had by last week.
He would have done exactly what he did in Syria.
Bomb the hell out of them.
That's gonna wrap things up for today.
How do we get all of these Americans home?
Well, Biden of Pentagon is apparently negotiating with the Taliban, which they had criticized Donald Trump for to get Americans evacuated from Kabul Airport.
Great.
I thought that was the wrong thing to do.
Anyway, Donald J. Trump will join us.
We'll talk to him about Afghanistan and China and Russia and Iran, and we'll also talk about the borders.
We'll talk about at losing energy independence, inflation, the economy, and everything in between.
Yeah, I wonder if some Americans might miss some of his mean tweeting because I think the competency is a lot better, was a lot better under Donald Trump, and it's fairly obvious for everyone to see.
That's tonight at nine.
Donald Trump for most of the hour uh on camera on the Fox News channel.
We'll see you then back here tomorrow.
Thank you for being with us.
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